


A History of Decline

by acaramelmacchiato



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Don't sleep with kings and stuff it always ends bad, I am just thirsty for textiles, M/M, Rilienus and Radonis are the same person, Tevinter Imperium, for some reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 15:39:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5831221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian is Archon Radonis's ~favorite~ and he has a big crush on Radonis but it goes badly because it's Tevinter. The Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction Edward Gibbon would have written if he hung out on the Dragon Age: Inquisition kinkmeme, possibly!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Radonis looks like [this](http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t298/itachi_luver397/ArchonRadonis1_zpsnyrqjunk.png), I'm serious.

 

Dorian first met Archon Radonis at a party he had intended to sneak into. At sixteen he faced a predicament: Because he had not yet reached his majority he was not, in his own right, invited to anything.

His father had no interest in involving his son in society. Halward preferred to recommend his own virtuous lifestyle with written correspondence that invariably began the same way, “My dear son, as I dialogued with myself about death this morning.” His mother, having borne Halward Pavus an heir, lived at that time as it pleased her to live, which was far away from both her husband and ungovernable teenaged son.

Dorian went, therefore, where he was not invited. A handful of his peers were like-minded, and together they plagued the convivia and comissationes of Minrathous’s patricians, as inevitable as rats in a kitchen. So it was no surprise, when imperial swordbearers beat on the door of a magister’s villa and admitted the archon, that Dorian was already installed in the revelry. He was in fact in the atrium, trying to conceal that one of his classmates was vomiting into a potted date palm.

The archon was a man of young adult age, with a narrow beard in the imperial style, and a skiadion on his head of bright cloth-of-gold. He had entered arm in arm with a woman who was not the empress, who wore a heavy necklace of flat balas rubies, and who to match the archon had netted her hair in gold chains. She looked over the crowd with cheerful reserve, lifting her hand to her friends.

Dorian stared at her.

His first and least noble instinct was to hide. He shoved his friend Aurelian back so they could share the meager camouflage of the date palm.

“I say!” said Aurelian, who had barely recovered. “Dorian, a bit of air!”

Dorian remorselessly tried to insinuate himself between his friend and the wall.

“By the Maker,” cried Aurelian then, at a volume sufficient to attract the attention of the archon, his companion, and almost everyone else in the atrium. A lute player hit a wrong note and fell silent.

“Who goes there?” shouted one of the swordbearers.

Dorian and Aurelian, thoroughly caught, emerged from behind the palm to make their miserable obeisance to the archon.

“Thrice-greatest Radonis,” said Dorian, and bowed deeply enough that he could get away with looking at the floor. “May you live for a thousand years.”

“May you -- yes,” said Aurelian.

The archon’s eyebrows lifted, and his aloof expression gave way to amusement. The swordbearers stepped back.

“I am amazed,” said the archon. “I do not have such plants, and I have a palace.”

There was a general round of laughter. Dorian’s face was hot. He did not raise his eyes from the floor.

“Forgive me. A joke should provide amusement enough to compensate its victims,” said Radonis. His voice was quiet, of an average low pitch. “And I think this one did not. Pray what are your names?”

Before Dorian could answer, the archon’s companion touched his elbow.

“My dear,” she said, “I cannot believe you do not know my son Dorian. He is in school here in the capital. A school that I had always believed had curfews, but never mind, these modern times bewilder us all. As for the other, I have not the slightest guess.”

“Mother,” said Dorian, miserably. “I have the honor to introduce to you Aurelian of,” he swallowed, and could not meet her eyes, “of House Vius.”

“Aurelian of House Vius looks abominably unwell,” said Lady Aquinea. “See him to a carriage, and then we will talk. Inside, I think. I am so eager to hear you explain yourself.”

Radonis laughed, and then looked contrite.

Dorian had few memories of how he passed the rest of the night, but the next afternoon a letter arrived bearing the archon’s golden seal, inviting him for a game of chess.

* * *

“Do you play often?” asked Radonis over the board. They were in a room whose furnishings implied limitless hobbies; there were telescopes, easels and maps, and even a polo kit and a suit of niello armor.

“I play hardly at all,” said Dorian, “only one or two things on the board are familiar.”

“I know what,” said Radonis, lifting up the black archon piece to hold it next to his head. “We have the same hat.”

Dorian laughed. Everyone knew that the archon was no orator. Dorian had never before considered that his awkward and surprising humor might be humility, or even gentleness. The archon glanced at his chess piece once more before setting it down, and Dorian was almost preposterously charmed.

“To be honest,” Radonis continued, “I cannot remember the last time I saw a chessboard.”

“Then may I ask how the idea of playing it came to you?”

“Would you believe that Lady Aquinea suggested it?”

Dorian sighed. “I believe it in an instant. My mother is a fanatic of metaphors.”

“So she is. I believe you have the honor of opening our game. And I hope that between the two of us we will remember all the rules.”

“Only one rule matters, if I remember my nursery education correctly,” said Dorian, and moved his archon’s pawn forward. “One must win at any cost, and then sow the lands of one’s enemies with salt.”

Radonis laughed, and chose his own archon’s pawn. “We shall have an Orlesian opening, then, to match such Orlesian philosophy.”

Dorian moved his adjacent empress’s pawn, pleased to have made the archon laugh again, even at his own expense. He looked away, in case his face betrayed too much eagerness.

The room had a broad view of the sea, textured with rain and foaming waves. It felt very comfortable to sit in front of a chessboard and watch the rain mist into the ocean, comfortable enough to eclipse that his quiet, charming opponent was the lover of his mother and the ruler of the Imperium.

When, at last, Dorian had lost the game, he was very content to have proved nothing and impressed no one. On his way out, he stood for a long time in one of the palace’s outer peristyles.

The wall mosaic had a moral subject: It showed the towers of the Golden City, and twisted among them the black form of the Old God of Silence, styled like a snake bristling with swords. The eyes had been two rubies long ago, but never replaced after they were stolen. Dorian had seen things that resembled it in the Fade, things that were empty and beguiling, who whispered that the glory of old days was ash but could so easily be had again. He leaned against the dragon’s face, waiting for the rain to stop.

Radonis invited him to return, thereafter, for a weekly game.

* * *

 

“I am going to appoint Halward Pavus to my council of advisors,” said Radonis, on an evening years later. Dorian had lost the chess game long ago and was inspecting the archon’s collection of magical ephemera, which ranged from a dragon’s tooth to an entire corpse, kept in a chained sarcophagus in the corner.

The archon’s outer suite was now extremely familiar to him. It remained unchanged while Dorian took uncounted temporary residences in every magical circle in the Imperium.

“I was not aware that the archon needed advice on filial obligation or how to drink less,” he said. “But in these respects I can promise that my father will suit your needs excellently well. Is this lyrium dust, by the way?”

Radonis looked over. “It is, and keep the vial closed. It gets everywhere and will cause the most ludicrous enchantments. To answer your objections: Magister Pavus is an example to all who govern in my provinces, and a pinnacle of his faction in the Magisterium. I can do no better than his advice. But I wish to see you raised as well. How would it suit you to be one of my grooms?”

Dorian nearly dropped the vial of lyrium dust he had been prying open. “Myself, an imperial groom? Anyone would think Magister Pavus is parched for advancement, the way he sniffs after it. I beg you to look better on my brazen family.”

“This is not Halward’s request,” said the archon. He looked at his hands and his golden rings, a lettered signet for his office, cabochon jewels for his family, and braided wire for his marriage. “You know there are those who say that the glory of the Imperium is lost. They walk around in a gloom, allegedly because our ancient wonders were once new.”

“Yes of course,” said Dorian, in an attempt to conceal that he had always been susceptible to their philosophy. “Honestly you can’t swing at cat at an orgy nowadays without someone yelping that our magnificent ancestors are weeping. It is entirely tiresome, but I confess I do not see the matter being rectified by honoring me.”

“I have no great faculty with words. What I mean is this -- I do not share such dreary opinions, and love my homeland for what she is instead of what she was. Therefore it pleases me to give favor and advancement to those who are my friends; it is for the greater glory of the empire. I want my court to be wise, cheerful and generous, and to shine from the palace like the sun.”

A political appointment, then, where Dorian had the idiotic hope that it would be due to some personal preferment.

“I cannot honorably refuse. But you must know, if there are duties attached to this office, that I have never exactly risen to the occasion before.”

Radonis smiled, and leaned back in his chair. “It is a ceremonial honor only. But I hope you will find it sufficient encouragement to visit with me when you have the leisure, and to know that I am one with your interest in my heart, and a close thing to family.”

A closer thing, in fact, than Dorian was willing to tell him. When he was away from Minrathous, he missed this particular dark room of porphyry, filled with curios and games and overlooking the sea. He missed the benign perfume of myrtle and styrax that smoked from golden censers, and most of all the archon’s good-natured voice. For four years he had returned with regularity to the palace, and not to his home.

His father wrote to him the next week: _You are old enough now to know_ ,  _and will no doubt discover when you are made a strator, that it pleases your mother to be the titled mistress of the archon. If she is happy I am happy for her, for none could say that she did less than her duty, and after all there are so many roads to power._

* * *

 

Shortly after Halward Pavus received his new livery collar, Dorian left for the remote province of Asariel and did not see Archon Radonis personally for five years.

When he did it was in the lonely halls of the Minrathous Circle of Magi curia.

“Dorian of House Pavus,” said Radonis. “You are quite the last person I expected to find engaged in the dreary business of legislation. And after dark.”

In most ways he was the same. His beard was unchanged, as he had always promised, so that the imperial treasury did not have to remake the cast for his coins, and his long eyebrows were drawn together as usual in some sardonic expression or another. He wore silk dyed seven times in crimson, and carried his scepter of gold-and-enamel snakes.

Dorian bowed. “Your highness. I admit I had no conception that the rank of enchanter came anchored with so much abominable work. I would resign in an instant, if I did not suspect that advancement will lighten the load.”

“They do say that work rolls down the hill, but it has never been my experience.”

“Pray for me then that you are the exception.”

Radonis laughed, and then he sighed. “Dorian,” he said with new seriousness. “It has been too long.”

Far too long. Dorian tried to recall the routine of their conversations. It belonged to an old life, before his friend had been stricken with illness and his mentor with grief. Before Dorian himself received letters twice weekly about the duty he failed to do.

Before so much had happened that was sobering, so much that was diminishing, and hollow, and simply sad.

“Do you think you would join me for a game of chess?” said Radonis, his voice as quiet and warm as it always was.

Dorian smiled, and felt that his expression was almost immoderately grateful. “I should like that,” he said, and stopped to clear his throat. “Yes, I should like that more than I can say.”

“Then we must play sooner rather than later. Tomorrow, do you think?”

“I look forward to it.”

“Tomorrow then,” said Radonis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Letters from Halward Pavus: heavy Stoicism, light disappointment  
> 2\. I had no idea what to do with [this hat](http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t298/itachi_luver397/ArchonRadonis2_zps8v247t9k.png) because it is not exactly the stuff of boners. I decided to go with a skiadion, which was worn by a variety of Byzantine court officials as well as the emperor’s family, but not typically by the emperor, at least not in art, or in public (where he wore a crown). Neither type of typical imperial crown seen in portraiture looks even vaguely like the spaceship on Radonis’s head, so I decided to dress my emperor a little casually because at the end of the day I’m not like an expert in Old Time Hats or even Fantasy Hats here I’m just trying to write fanfiction ....  
> 3\. For Aquinea’s hair I was thinking this French hood idea that seemed to have some precedent [here](http://40.media.tumblr.com/47bc33785695b7ad2f28c97792025a84/tumblr_nghbzg1Trc1tte9mqo1_1280.png) until it occurred to me that the lady in the picture might actually .... just be blonde. Anyway we're too deep now, the thought was to take a traditional concept (stick your hair in a bag) and put a Tevinter Twist on it by making the net out of chains instead of fabric, because rule #1 of translating history to fantasy is to turn fabric to either leather or metal.  
> 4\. Balas rubies are spinels, but I just put spinels in a Don Carlos fanfiction and didn’t want to seem like I only know two or three gemstones, so I thought I’d change it up. Also this sounds a lil more ~fantasy and less Hapsburg especially under the French hood debacle  
> 5\. “Thrice-greatest” or, Trismegistus, because I suspected the Dragon Age people and I were on the same page on this ever since I google-imaged Radonis and he was holding like, a caduceus with an extra snake.  
> 6\. Q: ‘swordbearers’ isn’t a word!  
> A: (dry whisper) but spatharioi is. I have written Tevinter fanfiction before, and wanted to sort of round out my take with the imperial court feeling more Byzantine and the more conservative nobility feeling earlier Roman because otherwise what's the point  
> 7\. “golden seal” if you thought you were getting through this fanfiction without at least 19 chrysobulls ha ha ha no  
> 8\. “An Orlesian opening,” or, the French Defense, I am sorry for this joke  
> 9\. Q: Why did you say strator A: because I can’t fucking help myself  
> 10\. “It gets everywhere” ie, it’s glitter  
> 11\. Stryax = benzoin but again I wanted this to sound like fantasy and not the sale bin at the Body Shop  
> 12\. Q: What's the mom angle? A: It's like a.....Brutus, Anne Boleyn....combo thing....


	2. Chapter 2

 

“You haven’t improved,” Radonis observed as he captured what had been the last remnant of Dorian’s defense.

“At chess. But I have learned so much about a great many other things.”

“You will have to tell me all of them, one day.”

“You will regret such sentimentality two hours deep in the interactive kinematics of temporal magic. It’s all theoretical, of course, and therefore pointless in the end.”

Radonis laughed. Dorian learned early that it was gratifying to make him do so, and had not forgotten the trick.

His memory of all the afternoons he spent in this room grew vivid, the detail encouraged by the sound of Radonis’s friendly voice, and the scents of styrax and myrtle and the sea. He had been more than half in love with Radonis back then, and pursued his teasing and his affection. The memory grew stronger with each minute.

“Your mother, you must know, is no longer my mistress,” said Radonis.

“Do not worry about surprising me, I have been kept well-informed on the subject by the soporati graffiti.”

“It is to my regret. But nothing we have on earth is made to be eternal.”

“Maybe not, but I think the two of you were practically an opera about fidelity. At least compared to my own experience, which is that love blossoms in a single evening. And often the bloom is quite gone off on the way out of the cupboard.”

“I confess I am relieved, Dorian, that you have not changed during our separation.”

Dorian looked at his glass. “Not a bit. Do you have any more wine at all?”

“No,” said Radonis. “It was the last bottle in the palace.”

“I leave for five years, and now you are a luminary wit? What is to become of government?”

“Perhaps you have never noticed before.”

Dorian laughed outright, and then remembered himself. “Forgive my insolence, it was -- well, funny, though somewhat at your expense.”

“We are much alike. I have been witty as long as you have been insolent,” said Radonis, just as their empty pitcher of wine was exchanged for a new one. “It is your most enduring quality. You know that first time we met was not at the home of Magister Suetonius, with the palm tree? You were in fact something like three years old.”

“Oh good,” said Dorian, and received his filled cup gratefully. “A story from my childhood.”

“I was at the time not Archon Radonis but merely Rilienus, for my father still sat on the imperial throne. I was on progress through Qarinus, and your family received me warmly, with the exception of yourself. As I recall, you tried to pull my beard off. With both hands.”

“Fascinating, and did I succeed?”

“Nearly, until your father intervened.”

Dorian touched the ends of his mustache. “My understanding of facial hair, you may observe, has matured considerably.”

“Yes, looking back on the incident I wonder if your interest was a form of precociousness.”

“Precociousness? Impossible,” said Dorian, and looked at the board. “Rather like my winning this game. Let’s not drag it out. I surrender.”

“It is so late, I cannot blame you. Only stay here in the palace tonight, I cannot possibly turn you out on the street on such an occasion as a reunion.”

Dorian stretched his back. “My fault for taking so infernally long. But thank you. No matter what else, I am not so poor a subject as to argue with you.”

Radonis showed him to a room close by, sharing the same colonnaded view of the harbor. After the lamps were lit, the two of them were left alone, standing close enough to touch with little effort. Dorian let his gaze drop from Radonis’s eyes to his lips, reached for his shoulders, and kissed him.

Radonis did not react as innocently as he had in uncounted youthful daydreams. He put his hand on Dorian’s neck immediately, to adjust the angle of their faces to his satisfaction. Dorian, who had never kissed anyone chastely in his life, was surprised by the archon’s vigor.

But Radonis’s heavy rings soon warmed, and he proved himself as willing to follow as to lead. Their clothing made a quiet, pleasant sound as silk dragged against silk, and Dorian found that he was experiencing a philosophical appreciation for the present moment.

“If you knew,” said Radonis, breathing at the same volume as he spoke, “how often I have thought of this, during our separation, it would not flatter me.”

“Then we won’t discuss it except to say that I understand you. I am so relieved,” Dorian went on, and opened his eyes to find the room brighter than he had left it, “that neither of us has sunk to the level of making a smart comment about chess.”

“You mean, something like, the archon captures -- ”

“If you say anything about a pawn, I will assassinate you,” said Dorian. “What an odd moment to have an erection.”

He stayed at the palace for seven days.

* * *

 

On the morning of the eighth day, Dorian announced his intention to return to the curia and his own home in Minrathous.

“I have been gone seven days, and having fun, no less. It is a matter of mathematical certainty, therefore, that my father has sent me seven _thousand_ angry letters. Certainly my friends and colleagues believe I have died. I would not mind, but Alexius does rely on me.”

“All things end,” said Radonis, who was being shaved and was limited to profound succinctness.

“You should see my father’s letters.”

Radonis started to laugh, but the man holding the razor stilled his face. “I have. I’d ask you to come back tomorrow, but I am obligated to attend Magister Melos’s wedding, and what did you say about that?”

“That I would rather eat glass than endure it. His daughter was engaged to Magister Alexius’s son Felix, and Melos broke it off once -- well, never mind, it is early in the day to curse even the deserving.”

“I will toast him coldly for you.”

“I can ask nothing more. I will see you the day after, then.”

The barber's presence prohibited Dorian from leaving with a gesture more affectionate than laying his hand on Radonis’s. “The day after,” said Radonis, and squeezed his hand gently.

There were no letters from his father waiting for him, and in fact the very latest was two weeks old.

The next day there were still none.

Dorian enquired, and his servants could not explain it. The mail had been regular, there had been no storms, and of Magister Pavus’s letters, which were dispatched twice a week in normal circumstances, there was no trace.

He knew that Halward had been in the city, not five days ago, for an assembly of the archon’s close advisors. Halward, who tirelessly implored his son to think of his legacy and elevate the pride of his name. What had he written, years ago? _There are so many roads to power._

Dorian spent a minute finding a suitable vase. He found one of red clay with decorative barbotine, nearly the size of a human head, which was not a significant heirloom.

He threw it at a wall, where it shattered explosively.

“Sir!” cried one of his servants, running when he heard the noise but stopping uncertainly in the doorway.

“I’m not finished,” said Dorian. The vase had been one of a matched set, and he hurled the second onto the floor. “But now I am. I have given regrets to Magister Melos concerning his fourth wedding tonight; I have changed my mind and plan to attend. And send one of the corpses to clean up in here, these fragments are like walking on knives.”

* * *

 

Magister Melos’s wedding feast was two hours underway when Dorian arrived. Archon Radonis spotted him and called out, and the room grew subtly quieter.

“Dorian! Have you run out of glass?”

“Let’s say I have. I hoped to speak with you.”

None of the wedding guests would quite vulgar enough to stare, but the archon’s conversation had captured everyone’s interest. Their curiosity thickened the air.

“Of course,” said Radonis, his voice and smile unbearably warm. He put his hand on Dorian’s elbow, and for a moment Dorian considered his little remaining honor an easy price to pay. He had once believed that there was nothing more to do in life than to live it well.

Instead he moved his arm. “Alone, if you please. We have already caused enough distraction.”

Radonis bit his lip. “My word, you seem quite serious. Lead on, but take a glass of wine at least, before our friend Melos thinks you are here to kill him.”

“Our friend indeed,” Dorian muttered, but he drank, and Radonis followed him to an unoccupied room.

It was Melos’s bedroom, and prepared for his wedding night. Flowers were scattered on the bed, and the room perfumed, for prosperity, with rose oil and spikenard.

“I hope you aren’t proposing that we,” Radonis looked quickly at the bed. “Well.”

“No,” said Dorian. “I said I wanted to speak with you. And here it is. Had you received any report of me from my father during our estrangement?”

Radonis’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Almost every relevant piece of news. He is proud of you, Dorian, more than you know. But my answer does not satisfy you?”

Dorian wanted cross his arms, but he stood straight. “Let me be more specific. I think he gave you some encouragement, or suggestion, that I would be amenable to, or wanted -- that I _hungered_ for --”

Radonis dropped his head. He lifted a hand. “Dorian -- ”

“Magister Halward Pavus, your loyal exarch and advisor, who cares only for the advancement of his family _name_ , proposed his son as -- well, I cannot imagine what he said. A concubine to the archon? And we have the effrontery in Tevinter to say that we have not left our dignity trampled in our ruins! Have you any response? He who is silent must only agree!”

“Dorian,” said Radonis, more urgently now, with a look at the heavy-handled doors behind him.

“You know he has stopped nagging me to marry? And now it is confirmed, that for Magister Halward Pavus it is sufficient to his ambition that someone in his family is fucking the archon --”

The doors opened, admitting Magister Melos, his new bride, and behind them the entire wedding party.

A girl who had been throwing rose petals halted with a gasp. The petals fell from her hands and made the only noise in the room.

Radonis nodded at them with a particular frigid dignity. It was unfamiliar, and it cooled the room. Dorian thought in that cold instant that he may have broken another man’s heart for the satisfaction of his own honor.

“Magister Melos, and my lady Melos,” said Radonis. “May Andraste bless your union, we were just leaving.”

Dorian fled south the next morning.

* * *

 

For someone who claimed to have abandoned his enemies as well as his friends, Dorian received a lot of mail from all of them. It exhausted Leliana to read it. A shocking number of people simply offered him money, and a nearly equal number asked for it. Others sent personal pleas, for him to come home, or stay away, or lend them a horse. Only three letters, out of all of them, were of interest.

They were signed with the flourishing initials “R.R” and sealed with blank golden wax, and they contained roundabout apologies and forgiveness for nothing specifically stated. They referred often to happier times in the past, which was a common device in writing from the Imperium, but rarely seemed so sincere. The fourth such letter she brought to Josephine.

“Do you know what this is?” Leliana asked, unfolding the large dried-pith paper and wafting some of the styrax that scented it toward Josephine’s desk.

Josephine lifted her eyebrows. “I like it,” she said. “But I think you should consider the lightest addition of a floral. Heliotrope and orange flower are both in fashion.”

“It is a piece of correspondence,” said Leliana, “originating from the Tevinter Imperium.”

“Then I hope you checked it for snakes before opening it in my office.”

Leliana leaned against the desk, and set the letter down so Josephine could read it. “If I did not check everything for snakes, I would not have lived so long. I think that Archon Rilienus Radonis is writing to Dorian. In fact I am sure of it. He is a powerful man, but not very stealthy.”

Josephine moved the paper closer and skimmed over it. “Hmm. How sad. I do not know the handwriting, but the content accords with -- certain rumors, of which you are certainly aware.”

“So let me ask you, is there any utility in opening a dialogue with him on behalf of the Inquisition?”

Josephine set down her quill. “I do not think we should rule it out. But we have little to gain, and as we both suspect it may be the Imperium, one day soon, which will need our help. And having first extended the hand will erode our negotiating position, to put it bluntly. I think it is a definite tragedy, but it has won us one ally already, and for the moment that must be enough.”

“Good. I had thought the same, but it was up to you to decide.”

“By the way, you read our mail yourself? I thought you had a staff.”

“It is out of respect,” said Leliana. “In Tevinter there are no secrets anymore, but in Antiva there are one or two still about.”

“I don’t think I would be so careless as to involve myself in any of them, but then, one can be either a romantic or a politician but never both.”

Leliana took the letter back, sniffed it, and started to fold it up. “Never with much success.”

“We learn from our foregoers. To a student of politics, Tevinter is an anthology of lessons from history. It is a nation that has made every mistake, and consequently can teach every evasion. There is no hope, of course, but so much for the rest of us to learn. Much like the theater. Don’t tell Dorian I said that.”

“I don’t tell anyone anything.”

Josephine smiled. “Thank you. And I wonder if that letter might have gotten lost on its way south? As I said, to extend a hand -- any hand -- would be to weaken our future position, and the writing is very moving.”

“Letters are lost all the time,” said Leliana. “Especially those bearing no one’s seal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of burnt out on notes in the first chapter.......
> 
> 1\. I don't think "interactive kinematics" is even a physics term so it's a Fantasy Success!  
> 2\. Aquinea is in Mykonos writing a spirulina-based cookbook  
> 3\. "wit being well-bred insolence" is a hey to Aristotle because what is Dragon Age fanfiction without .... him  
> 4\. I strongly feel like this fanfiction is the Fantasy Magical Byzantine equivalent of breaking up with ur man bc you find out he deleted the fingerprint you've been using to unlock his iphone  
> 5\. It's pretty obvious I wrote this just to mix scents  
> 6\. If Leliana just burnt everyone's mail to toast no one in the Inquisition would have problems, this is the moral of the fanfiction. don't text.


End file.
